What do you do (and why should I care)? The parenthesis represents the thought bubble that filters our openness to engagement. As purveyors or consumers of product/service the answer can be illuminating.Many businesses fail to nail the essence of either question.The least passionate answer might distil down to “servicing demand” Servicing demand or order taking is soulless. The care factor is mostly minimal and the appetite for relationship building or advocacy negligible. Many businesses act like order takers, taking for granted and expecting that the demand will always exist. We live in an increasingly malleable and fickle economic environment. There is an almost white noise saturation of content, reflected by an acute difficulty in garnering attention. Once upon a time the size of your ‘Yellow Pages’ advertisement represented a quantifiable portion of qualified attention. Today, not so much. Steve Jobs prior to his resurrection as the saviour of Apple, was asked what was the major distinction between Apple and Windows (at this time Windows seemed unassailable as market leaders?) and his paraphrased answer was that Windows lacked style or creativity, akin to fast food. In the absence of affordable style, passion, futuristic creativity, bland serviceability will fill the vacuum, but watch out when there’s an alternative. Rarely do fast food outlets breed tribal advocates. As business operators we make a choice, consciously or by default to stand out from the crowd or copy the template of the contemporary. “What do you do and why should I care?” offers us an opportunity to note where on the continuum between bland and WOW we stand. Look in the mirror and ask yourself that question. Is your answer destined to attract an advocate or anonymous consumer? Here are a few potential perspective shifts that just a few words can elicit. “We Sell xxxxx” ‘We source and supply the best xxxxxx” “We inform and educate our future clients to take action…” “We have a passion to be the market leader in service and quality….” “We strive daily to earn the trust and loyalty of our valued friends and clients” “We are on a mission to motivate, Inspire and amplify the dormant visions of a better future for our valued clients and team members…” Of course it is not the definition that matters, but our adherence to it. Sometimes what we think we do impacts the message. Reframing our message to correlate closer to the original reason we got into business is not only authentic but more often than not more inspiring to us and all those who ponder those two questions